Good morning everybody,

The honorable of the judges, teachers and all of my beloved friends.

How are you this morning?

I hope today all of you have a good mood and condition too.

First of all, I would like to thank to Almighty God who has been giving us blessing and mercies
so we can attend this English speech contest in a good condition.

Before I start my speech, let me introduce myself. I am Pauline Kezia Napitu. I am from junior
high school of Methodist II Tanjung Balai. I am in the second grade of junior high school.

In this opportunity I would like to deliver my speech entitled “The Students’ Role to Preserve
Our Culture”. The reason why I talk about this topic is because I want to show you the
importance of preserving traditional culture for students, as we know that Indonesia has so many
traditional cultures but students right now don’t want to know or use it in their daily life,
moreover to remind the students awareness about the traditional culture, because the students are
affected with western or Korean culture and to ask the all of us especially students to preserve
traditional culture because students now or “Kids Zaman Now” prefer Western culture or Korean
culture, like K-Pop and Modern Dance.

The outline of my speech is:

1. What is Culture?

2. Why students prefer western or Korean culture?

3. How students can preserve our traditional culture?

First, I will explain about the meaning of culture. Do you know the meaning of culture? Culture
means life method which grows up in the society area which heir by generations to generations.
Such as music, language, traditional dances, cuisine, and etc. As we know Indonesia is a big
nation has abundant natural resources and has more than 17 thousand islands and each island has
their own culture. Base on Central Bureau of Statistics or Badan Pusat Statistik, we have 7.241
cultures in Indonesia; we have more than 1.340 tribes and 742 languages. Culture is an identity.
Many people know Indonesia because of its various cultures. Bali is famous not only because of
its beautiful views but also strong cultures, such as Kecak dance and the Temple, because of that
many people come to visit Bali every year. Even, western singer, Audun Kvitland sings “Nasi
Padang”. He said, he made the song because he likes the taste of Nasi Padang when he tried it at
the first time so he makes the song. We also have Batik, Keris, Wayang, Rendang, Tor-Tor and
Borobudur and many more. We as the students should know and proud because we have various
famous cultures in Indonesia. But unfortunately, student now is living in a globalization era.
They don’t have any interest with their own culture. They prefer modern culture that comes from
Western or Korean country.

Ladies and Gentleman

Do you know Blackpink, BTS and Taki Taki? They are so famous right now, I think all students
know and love their songs, dances or even languages. Do you know that in my class almost all
students talk about Korean Drama and K-Pop every day? And they can sing the song fast and
they also can practice the dances easily. And because of this globalization era too, the student
nowadays is having a mind set about “International Scale” anything they do is all about western
and Korean thing. They behave like a western and Korean style, they like break dance, R&B, hip
hop, Korean dance and song more than their own songs and dances. And also, student nowadays
is using internet and social media such as YouTube, Twitter or Instagram to see and post about
the western or Korean culture like modern dance, Korean drama, Mobile Legend and etc. The
western or Korean cultures are famous because, they are stylish, fashionable, cool and trendy.
Now, Indonesian students love modern and Korean music and dance and they forgot Indonesian
traditional music and dance, one by one and step by step. They don’t want to learn traditional or
sing traditional dance because they think those are not trendy, right?

So, ladies and gentlemen I’m standing here to tell you all, how important culture awareness are.
Why do I say like that? Because if not us, the students, the young generation that take care our
culture, then who else will do it? Do we want our culture extinct? Of course, no. We don’t want
to let that thing happen, right? So what we can do to preserve our culture?
First is proud to be Indonesian. We don’t have to be shy to be a part of Indonesian. We should
proud because we have so many traditional cultures. We can do simple thing to show that we are
proud to have traditional culture. For example, we can wear Batik or Kebaya, we eat Rendang or
Nasi padang, we don’t need to eat pizza, hamburger or steak all the time, we can play Petak
Umpet, Kelereng or Lompat Tali. As we know students now like to play Mobile Legend,
Pokemon and PUBG. They like to play with their gadgets and do outdoors activity. We can also
attract other people to know about it and join it.

Second is to make the students and young generations nowadays love our cultures. We have to
make them realize that our music and dance and other culture is also great and not old-fashioned.
We can sing traditional song and practice traditional dance in performing arts in our each school.
We don’t need to dance Korean dance or sing western song all the time. We also can modernize
our dances and songs so students like and interested with them. We also can mix it with another
culture to make it more fun.

And the last and the most important thing we have to educate and inform them about Indonesian
culture. We as the students should educate and inform our friends, brothers and sisters about the
various cultures in Indonesia, we have to tell to our brother or sister to play traditional game, to
sing traditional song, to eat traditional food, to dance traditional dance and to wear traditional
clothes of Indonesia from now so it will be their habit and they will love and preserve the
tradition. We should care our culture.

The conclusions of my speech are, first, we have to know the culture of our country. Second, we
cannot affect with the western or Korean culture, even, modern culture comes to our country we
cannot forget with our culture. Third, we have to preserve our culture by proud to be Indonesian,
to make the students and young generations nowadays love our cultures and we have to educate
and inform them about Indonesian culture.

I think that’s all about my speech. Thank you very much for your good attention, and I’m sorry if
there are some wrong words I’ve said. So let us love our culture, preserve it, grow it and of
course be proud of Indonesian Culture! "If we save the culture, it means we also save the
Nation and Our country". Thank you.